Grant to fuel sugar mills' renewable energy efforts

The CEO of Mackay Sugar says a Federal Government grant will help to halve the coal used in local sugar mills.

The Government has contributed $9 million to Mackay Sugar's program to use sugar by-products as a fuel source.

Quinton Hildebrand says infrastructure for the program will begin construction after this year's harvest and will not affect production.

"The work that's going to be done at Marian is isolated to the back of the factory where the boilers are positioned, the rest of the maintenance will be ongoing parallel with that, so this fits well within the normal maintenance period for the factory," he said.

He says the program will significantly reduce the company's reliance on coal as a fuel source.

"We burn about 30,000 tonnes of coal in the off-season to power the co-gen plant and the refinery," he said.

"With this intervention here at Marian, once we get the efficiencies up we should be able to halve the amount we use."